Authorities Say Hidden Donations Easily Fuel Bribery Scheme (Ohio GOP)
Source: Canton Repository
COLUMBUS Commercials supporting the FirstEnergy nuclear power-plant bailout bill in 2019 showed children playing, wind turbines spinning and solar panels shining in the sun but never showed a nuclear power plant.
Clean air and clean energy begin with clean government, one video said, over a scene of a toddler walking hand-in-hand with his parents.
But according to an 82-page criminal complaint released by federal prosecutors on Tuesday, the ubiquitous ads were really part of the largest criminal conspiracy in Ohio government political history a racket, similar to those used by the mafia.
Read more: https://www.cantonrep.com/business/20200726/authorities-say-rsquodark-moneyrsquo-can-easily-fuel-bribery-scheme
The Retrumplican Party is nothing but a criminal mob organization. Read the entire article. The quotes from FBI surveillance of the Retrumplicans in Ohio are priceless.
We need to make it known that this kind of stuff isn't just limited to Ohio. The entire Retrumplican Party needs this tied around their necks.
Hell, they even went after their own Retrumplican elected officials to get a more corrupt Retrumplican in particular House seats!
BTW - Someone needs to take this newspaper article, roll it up tight, and smack Chief Justice Roberts across the fucking nose with it...EVERY GOD DAMNED DAY he's still on the Supreme Court. We need to copy 10 million of these articles and FedEx them to the Supreme Court mailroom.
This is fucking deplorable, but is NOT surprising
mercuryblues
(14,537 posts)I find it amazing that companies facing bankruptcy has millions and millions of dollars to bribe republicans to do their bidding.
UpInArms
(51,284 posts)and it is getting no traction
Sues Greitens Dark Money Group
Elad Gross, a constitutional attorney in St. Louis and former assistant attorney general of the state of Missouri, filed a petition in Cole County Circuit Court Friday against A New Missouri, Inc., and three of the organizations board members: Michael Adams, Robin Simpson and Jeff Stuerman.
A New Missouri was incorporated as a Missouri nonprofit corporation in February 2017 by Adams, a Washington, D.C., attorney and candidate for Kentucky Secretary of State. Members of former Gov. Greitens campaign staff and administration worked for A New Missouri, using the organizations nonprofit status to spend allegedly millions of dollars influencing Missouri policy.
Unlike campaign committees, A New Missouri and other dark money organizations do not disclose their donors.
A New Missouri was under close scrutiny by the Missouri House. A House investigative committee was looking into whether the Greitens campaign had improperly coordinated with A New Missouri. Hours before the governor resigned, a Cole County Circuit Court judge ordered A New Missouri to turn over its records to the House committee. But days after the governor left office, the House dropped its request for records without resolving its investigation.
In addition to the Missouri House, two Missouri prosecutors dropped investigations related to the Greitens campaign, and, despite inquiries, Attorney General Josh Hawley has not opened an investigation into A New Missouri.
Elad is currently running for Missouri Attorney General... I hope he wins.
Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)UpInArms
(51,284 posts)Gross told the St. Louis Record that he had two lawsuits underway, one against the nonprofit and another against the governor's office, alleging that they have withheld information that should be public record.
Gross started working in the nonprofit sector several years ago, which sparked his interest in the rights and limitations of nonprofit organizations. Eventually attending law school, Gross proceeded to become an assistant attorney-general where he became even more familiar with the consumer protection division, which seeks to protect public from corruption.
"I eventually left the attorney generals office in 2016 and not too long after that there was an organization called A New Missouri Incorporated and it was linked closely to our former governor, Eric Greitens, who eventually resigned," Gross told St. Louis Record. "Its a 501(c)4 non-profit organization, a politically involved nonprofit and it was putting out these advertisements against city and state senators and one of them was publishing the personal cell phone information online of an individual they were protesting."
Gross explained that he started investigating if nonprofits could give out personal information of individuals, which led him to learning more about "dark money" in the state of Missouri.
"I called the IRS and they werent allowed to give me information about this organization and it was very confusing for me, but eventually those ads went away," Gross said. "This past year, the governor was getting investigated and all of a sudden all of the attention turned to this nonprofit organization and whether he was coordinating the fundraising practices, and then he quit."
Following Greiten's resignation, the House of Representatives began investigating the governor's connection to the nonprofit, but Gross was still not given the information he was seeking.
I went to the appellate court hearing last August ... it is slowly winding through ... havent heard anything for a while ...
It really is dark money and a sordid tale.
captain queeg
(10,242 posts)Then I saw it was about the nuke plants there. Theyve been stained by corruption from the beginning and we're talking big bucks.
maxrandb
(15,351 posts)that those "Xtian, moral, upstanding, honorable, God-fearing, righteous" Retrumplicans still HATE the gays.
I'm embarrassed to say Ohio was my home.
captain queeg
(10,242 posts)I went there briefly last year for a visit. I still have a sister there but dont think Ill ever go back again.
lonely bird
(1,688 posts)That being said I was born in Illinois but grew up in Ohio. My wife and I moved back after 15 years in Illinois. Ohio turned to shit politically. It seems they want to try and match Illinois cesspool.
modrepub
(3,502 posts)There's a lot of people's jobs involved with these nuclear and coal-fired power plants. Nuclear and coal-fired power plants employ hundreds of people and a nuclear plant calls in thousands of worker for fuel rod changes. Combined cycle natural gas plants are cheaper to build, employ dozens (at most) people and are more efficient. Wind and solar are becoming cheaper over time (the problem is scale; renewable power generation is a fraction of the current size of nuclear and coal power plants but there are projects on the drawing board off the east coast that are close to the sizes of these large power plants). When there's this many people's jobs on the line it's bound to become political.
Seems the government of Ohio chose to "bail out" the utilities caught holding these dinosaurs. So much for capitalism and the market (invisible hand) guiding how power generation will change in the future.
Ohiogal
(32,057 posts)First Energy CEO Charles Jones saying he didnt know anything about this in this interview given to the Cleveland Plain Dealer
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/07/firstenergy-ceo-charles-jones-tells-investors-that-company-acted-properly-in-supporting-nuclear-power-bail-out.html
With Jeff Longstreth....its fitting.
maxrandb
(15,351 posts)Sancho
(9,070 posts)https://www.statehousereport.com/2020/01/10/big-story-lawmakers-ready-for-big-debate-on-santee-coopers-future/
The bribes and takeover of energy and GOP politics have invaded almost every state...
paleotn
(17,956 posts)They just don't want to pay for their own stupidity.
NNadir
(33,544 posts)...is very much a lie.
The wind industry is a crime against all future generations.
It is a sign of the times, that people need to be bribed with money and with photographs of these huge pieces of wasted metal, the wind turbines, to embrace nuclear energy - which do provide clean air on a significant level.
Bribery is a crime, but when we embrace the unsustainable wind industry - the worldwide enthusiasm for doing so very much withstanding - we are destroying the future. The ultimate outcome of the wind industry is simply to sustain the gas industry, without which the wind industry would collapse in a New York minute.
The wind industry has soaked up trillions of dollars in this century. It has never, not once, produced 10% of what the aging nuclear industry produces year after year, using technology developed in the 1950's and 1960's, albeit among some of the finest minds that ever existed.
The rate at which the atmosphere is collapsing is now 2.4 ppm per year increases of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide per year. This is the fastest rate of increase every observed, and the rate of increase of the increase, the second derivative is also positive.
We have all taken a bribe, to buy into the rhetoric of anti-nukes, and history will not forgive us, nor should it.
Nuclear power plants are the cleanest form of energy on earth; they save lives.
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 48894895)
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)along with the horrors of having to deal with nuclear power plant accidents such as what happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the Fukushima Daiichi plant, then yes, nuclear power plants can seem pretty darn clean.
NNadir
(33,544 posts)Last edited Sun Jul 26, 2020, 03:05 PM - Edit history (1)
...associated with air pollution each year?
It's between six and seven million per year.
Here is the most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 19902015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.
How many people, exactly, have died from so called "nuclear waste" since the founding of the industry in the mid 1950's, since you're so damned concerned?
As many as will die today from air pollution? That would be around 19,000 human beings, dead from air pollution more people than will die worldwide from Covid-19 days.
Is there some reason I, as a scientist, should credit your selective attention.
Frankly, I am spectacularly disinterested in people who raise the issue of Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island...because I know that combined they did not lead to the loss of life that not using nuclear power has caused by appeals to fear and ignorance.
These specious and frankly dangerous rote associations in my opinion are extremely immoral. They kill people.
Again, from one of the most prominent environmental scientific journals in the world, here is an open sourced, widely read, and widely cited paper coauthored one of the world's most prominent climate scientists in the world:
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 48894895)
Whether the people carrying on about so called "nuclear waste" - a subject about which they uniformly know zero since they never open science books - know it, dangerous fossil fuel waste is not only killing people, it is killing the planet, actively, aggressively in its normal operations. Climate change is real, and we are not doing anything to address it.
Nuclear power need not be without risk, it need not be perfect, to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.
I have been discussing the chemistry and physics of used nuclear fuels for more than 18 years in this space, and much, much longer elsewhere. I find people who raise the issue as if it were some kind of Trump card are decidedly Trumpian since they hold forth on a subject about which they have no knowledge or insight.
I invite anti-nukes to let me know when they give a shit, but over the years, I've observed, uniformly, they won't. Like Trump, they parade their ignorance, their "alternate facts."
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)I have disagreed. Sometimes, I have taught them things. Sometimes, they have taught me things. Sometimes, we both have learned something new. It can be a great exercise in using one's mind.
You, however, probably very rarely have long, drawn-out discussions with people about issues. I say this because you have been repeatedly insulting. Most of the people that I know tend to drop conversations with insulting people very quickly because few positives ever seem to come out of such discussions.
If your desire was to convince others of your point of view, you probably would avoid insulting people. If your purpose were to see if someone else might have a point that you had not considered, you probably would avoid insulting people. So, what exactly is the purpose of your post? Well, as near as I can guess, you actually enjoy insulting people.
You also seem to enjoy either stating or implying that you are highly educated and that people who disagree with you are either stupid or ignorant. The only people that I have ever met in my life that insult people as freely as you do have been all very unhappy. If you are this unhappy, I am sorry.
Since, over the years, I have found that debating people who prefer insults to facts to be a real waste of time, I wish you improved happiness, a good life, and a good day.
NNadir
(33,544 posts)However, most of these discussions are highly technical, and most often involve people with a modicum of technical knowledge.
It is not my job to beg people to think. Many people seem to think that this is so, but I learned to think on my own. I started, like many good liberals, as a dumb ass anti-nuke, but when I looked into the matter, independently and deeply, I found that my claim was unsupportable.
It is insulting to my more than 30 years of hard work studying issues in energy and the environment to have people expect me to kiss their asses when they make rote statements and tell me that I have to be nice to them because...because...because...well, why?
Anti-nuclear rhetoric, as I made clear, kills people.
My most important long and deep discussions, do not, in general, take place with people who want to raise their deep concern over Three Mile Island, for example, when since 2010 something like 60 or 70 million people have died from air pollution, and many hundreds of millions since Three Mile Island in 1976.
I do not expect that I have anything to learn from anyone starting with an evocation of so called "nuclear waste," when the planet is dying from climate change - dangerous fossil fuel waste. My journal in this space is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of commentaries on papers in the primary scientific literature, which is where I work my ass off to learn, by highly technical reading. Many of these journal entries concern the specific elements in used nuclear fuel, others involve other issues in science, not limited to but certainly including climate change.
We are seeing with Trump the Dunning-Kruger effect played out in a tragic display. I would submit that anyone who offers that we should accept 60 to 70 million deaths per decade from air pollution because nuclear waste is "dangerous" in their mind is definitely in Dunning-Kruger territory.
I have nothing to say to anyone in that territory, and certainly there is nothing in which I might be remotely interested, that anyone there can teach me.
paleotn
(17,956 posts)since it's become a rat's nest of corruption. But at the very least fix 501(c)(4). It is legal bribery sanctioned by SCOTUS. Require disclosure, especially in every political ad run by these groups. Sure, under Buckley v. Valeo you can spend whatever your want on political campaigns or ads, but you can't do it secretly, even if you're not supporting a specific candidate. Anonymity of speech in this case is not in the public's interest and in my mind is more dangerous than yelling fire in a crowded theater. Anonymity is exactly what makes this legal bribery.
dlk
(11,576 posts)onetexan
(13,058 posts)all thugs, crooks, and liars - the whole lot of them. This includes their spineless, enabling GOP in Congress.
Wuddles440
(1,127 posts)the previous Speaker of the House, Cliff Rosenberger, is still apparently under federal investigation for a pay-to-play scheme with the payday lending leeches. Also, Householder had been formerly investigated by the FBI for campaign irregularities. Ohio is extremely corrupt and fanatically pro-business (NET revenue less than $250,000 is not taxed - meaning there are business/individuals making millions and not paying any state income tax). Meanwhile, they just love screwing wage earners, retirees, homeowners, and consumers. It's too bad that the state is such a political hellhole, because it has great potential (which will probably never be realized). Can't wait to escape this nightmare.
lindysalsagal
(20,730 posts)Its a secret, a (c)(4) is secret, Clark told Householder in another recorded conversation. Nobody knows the money goes to the speakers account, (or that) it is controlled by his people.
Starting with $250,000 on March 16, 2017, FirstEnergy began secretly wiring money into Generation Nows accounts, according to the complaint. On Oct. 10, 2019, it sent $10 million, its largest single deposit, records show.
The organization was swimming in dark money enough to pay 15 signature-collection firms a total of $450,000 just so that they wouldnt work for opposition groups trying to overturn the nuclear bailout, Clark bragged in a taped conversation. His claim was confirmed by bank records, the complaint said.
Clark said he had spent close to $20 million in the last eight weeks, calling the Householder account unlimited, the complaint said.
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From me: If they're donating $20 mill, to get the taxpayers to bail out the nuclear reactor, what will the final pricetag be on the completed bailout?
And, is the other party (dems of Ohio) explaining to the local taxpayers that they've got a decrepit nuclear reactor in their town?
And, will they now make the owner eat the losses?
lindysalsagal
(20,730 posts)Did he know the house of cards was tipping?